The RCMP are looking for new members. The national police force is the public safety and criminal investigations body for much of Canada, all of northern B.C., and Quesnel’s local region.
The Quesnel Observer spoke with 21-year-old Joshua Clark when he was a rookie member in 2020, and Clark could hardly contain his excitement.
“I couldn’t be happier,” he said, expecting it would take years to be accepted, but discovered instead that he was embraced into the recruitment process.
“Coming from cities to smaller towns has definitely presented challenges, but it’s been exciting, and I’ve been enjoying learning so many different things about the community, and living in a place with a small town vibe has been fantastic,” said Clark, who comes from Kelowna. “Having an opportunity to see a more family-oriented community has been great. Back home, things were always so fast-paced, and people were always running from spot to spot; they never really had a chance to sit down, hang out and truly get to know each other. I’ve already got to know my neighbours, which is something that was so rare back home.”
Quesnel was the first posting for Jeff Warkentin, in 2019, and he had a similar view to Clark’s. He liked that Quesnel was a small town compared to his Lower Mainland roots, but was still busy in a police sense.
“People here are a lot friendlier, most of the time, and like talking to you. And there’s affordable real estate,” he said of first community impressions.
“There are so many different routes you can go with the RCMP,” he added. “Right now, I’m just focusing on the general duty side of things. There’s so much information to take in. Right now, I just go with the flow, get some experience in the job and time will tell.”
Quesnel is part of the RCMP’s spacious North District jurisdiction, encompasing about 70 per cent of the province. There are more than 40 Detachments and satellite support units working with our contract partners to provide policing services and programs to a diverse area that includes coastal communities, mining towns, major cities, First Nations of many sorts, isolated communities, summer getaways and traffic corridors.
More than 1,100 RCMP employees work and live in North District.
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